Her happiness began to falter and darken
like departing sunbeams. She remained for a space uncertain of
herself, knowing neither what was needed nor what was best; then
she spoke with resolute deprecation:
"Why discuss with me your past life? Have I not known you always?"
These were not the words of girlhood. She spoke from the emotions
of womanhood, beginning to-night in the plighting of her troth.
"You have trusted me too much, Isabel."
Repulsed a second time, she now fixed her large eyes upon him with
surprise. The next moment she had crossed lightly once more the
widening chasm.
"Rowan," she said more gravely and with slight reproach, "I have
not waited so long and then not known the man whom I have chosen."
"Ah," he cried, with a gesture of distress.
Thus they sat: she silent with new thoughts; he speechless with his
old ones. Again she was the first to speak. More deeply moved by
the sight of his increasing excitement, she took one of his hands
into both of hers, pressing it with a delicate tenderness.
"What is it that troubles you, Rowan? Tell me! It is my duty to
listen. I have the right to know."
He shrank from what he had never heard in her voice
before--disappointment in him. And it was neither girlhood nor
womanhood which had spoken now: it was comradeship which is
possible to girlhood and to womanhood through wifehood alone: she
was taking their future for granted. He caught her hand and lifted
it again and again to his lips; then he turned away from her.
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